Consumers warned of power shortages

Gerry Brownlee - National Energy Spokesperson

The sixth edition of the Energy Supply and Demand to 2015 report released today (October 7) by Brian Leyland confirms National’s strongly held view that New Zealand is heading towards an electricity supply crisis from 2005,says National’s Energy Spokesperson Gerry Brownlee.

“Minister Pete Hodgson's reaction to the report is typically ponderous and uncertain. Analysis of Brian Leyland’s work by Dr Tom Halliburton in the Ministers own words concludes that Transpower's forecast of system security appear somewhat optimistic and Mr Leyland too pessimistic.

“What they both confirm is that New Zealand is heading for a crisis and for the Minister to respond by saying he has information given to government in confidence that satisfies him that there will be more than enough additional generation capacity in the next ten years leaves him looking like the emperor with his new clothes.

“There is nothing there at all and we are heading for very high consumer power prices and regular blackouts from 2005.It is very clear that there is little capacity in the system now to manage a dry year scenario and no capacity at all beyond 2004.

“One of Brian Leyland’s key recommendations is to change the RMA so that new generation can be more easily planned and built and Transpower has greater authority to strengthen its transmission system. This makes sense.

It does not matter how much gloss Mr Hodgson puts on this report. Halliburton's analysis of it and Transpowers security report all point to power supply shortage‘s and outages and the Minister needs to get his head round it now,” says Mr Brownlee.

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